5 Must-Know Narratives of the Tour de France Femmes

Forget any withdrawal symptoms: as the dust settles on the men’s Tour de France, the biggest race on the women’s calendar gets underway this Saturday in Lausanne, Switzerland, and promises to be every bit as good. The top riders in the sport will clash across nine stages and varying terrain, with a time trial and summit finish on Mont Ventoux complicating GC campaigns and forcing the big names to play to their strengths.

Here are five key things to know as this year’s Tour de France Femmes sparks into life.

1: Ferrand-Prévot needs to raise her game

Can Pauline Ferrand-Prévot repeat at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift?

She believes she can, but it’s far from a given.

If she is to capture yellow again, the Frenchwoman will need to show far better form than what she has displayed this season.

Thus far she has achieved a lot less than some of her key rivals, with just 12 days of racing, no wins, and two podium places as her best results.

Second in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and third in Paris-Roubaix looked promising early on, but after that things went a bit flat, including a very modest 35th overall in the Vuelta España Femenina.

That contrasts with 2025, when she took a huge solo win in Paris-Roubaix. That was her first victory since returning to road racing from MTB, and showed just how well she had made the transition.

One year on, Ferrand Prévot’s rivals have done a lot more competition this season and shown far better form than her. But if she can engineer another huge peak like last summer, she will be right in the picture.

There’s one positive: last year she was a DNF in the Vuelta España Femenina so, in that regard, her 35th overall this time around is a more solid showing.

Since then she has been working really hard. A short video clip released this week by her Visma-Lease a Bike team showed a similar drop in weight as compared to last year, something that led last summer to a lot of discussion and also some scathing comments from her rivals.

Shedding weight in such a pronounced way is walking the tightrope between form and failure, and is also not sustainable. This is something Ferrand Prévot herself acknowledged last year, and may well explain her much more modest form in the worlds.

The stakes are very high: if she gets everything right and wins another Tour de France Femmes, her approach will be vindicated.

But if her rivals are stronger than her this time, if her TT ability lets her down, or if anything goes wrong for her along the way, she risks being left with a very understated season.

In that regard, the pressure is really on.

2: Vollering taking a complete different approach

If Ferrand Prévot has been so-so this year, Demi Vollering has been the absolute opposite. She’s had a stunning season, channelling her disappointment of finishing second in last’s Tour into pure determination this time around.

Her year has been an exceptional one thus far and, even considering what Ferrand Prévot did last time around, Vollering will be top favorite for many.

Consider her 2026 stats. The Dutchwoman has competed over 20 days, and has taken ten victories. That 50 percent strike rate is extraordinary.

She got things underway with two out of three stages plus the overall in the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana, then gathered pace with wins in Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

She then started the Giro d’Italia Women, winning stages five and eight, then overhauling race leader Anna van der Breggen on the final day.

Since then Vollering has spent almost two months preparing fastidiously for the Tour de France Femmes. She sidestepped the Tour de Suisse Women to focus on training, wanting to ensure she is in peak shape for her biggest goal of the year.

It’s brought the biggest highs and lows of her career: so dominant in 2023, she lost out to Kasia Niewiadoma due to time lost in a crash in 2024, and then finished second overall but almost four minutes behind Ferrand-Prévot last year.

Vollering is a hugely driven competitor and she and the FDJ – Suez United are doing everything she can to ensure she will win this time around. Her approach is markedly different to that of Ferrand-Prévot. We’ll soon see if high-quality consistency outpaces one big peak.

3: Marlen Reusser can put a troubled Tour history behind her

Thus far the Tour de France Femmes hasn’t worked out well for Marlen Reusser. She has ridden it three times, withdrawing in 2022 and 2025 following a crash and illness respectively, and was just 28th overall in 2023, albeit winning the final time trial.

The Swiss rider could and should have been a contender: she was second last year in both the Vuelta España Femenina and the Giro d’Italia Women and those performances, as well as her 39 career wins show that she has what it takes.

Reusser was hugely impressive in the recent Tour de Suisse Women, taking the race lead when she won the stage 4 time trial and then making sure of the overall when she took the concluding uphill finish. Those wins occurred as she continued to rebuild after fracturing her spine in the Tour of Flanders and, weeks on from her Swiss wins, she could be stronger again.

The Tour de France Femmes features the longest individual time trials since 2023. The winner then? Reusser. That will spur the current world champion onwards, and so too the fact that the race starts in her native Switzerland.

If she’s on her best form, she will be slap bang in the centre of things as the GC battle unfurls.

4: It’s complicated for Kasia

Kasia Niewiadoma won the race overall in 2024, putting in an incredibly dogged defence of her yellow jersey on the final stage of Alpe d’Huez. The ace climber would dearly love to take the race again and should relish the ascent of Mont Ventoux on stage 7 plus the four ascents of the Col d’Eze on Sunday week.

Both will play to her strengths of being one of the top uphill specialists in cycling.

However her dream of taking another yellow jersey is complicated by the route of this year’s race. There is a 21km time trial on day 4 and, given her past history in TTs, the Canyon-Sram rider could end up losing a chunk of time.

She surrendered 1:46 to Reusser over a similar distance in the Tour de Suisse and may find herself with a huge amount to do once the race hits the mountains.

The fact that the race has just one summit finish this year also makes things difficult for her.

Niewiadoma is always an aggressive, opportunistic rider, things will need to go perfectly this time around tactically and physically for her to succeed.

5: Four Tour stars in waiting

Past winners Ferrand-Prévot, Kasia Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering will be on most people’s favorite list this year, by virtue of that previous success.

However there are several other big guns who could do something really special and take their first victory in the race.

Anna van der Breggen previously won many of the biggest races in the sport, retired in 2021, then returned to the pro peloton prior to the start of last season.

While year one was solid rather than spectacular, she has raised her game again in 2026 by virtue of having that first season in her legs.

The SD Worx Protime rider followed up a very Ardennes Classics campaign with success on stage 5 of the Volta España Femenina. That thrust her into the race lead but she lost it during the final stage to the up and coming star Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ).

Van der Breggen had a real case of Déjà vu one month later when she won stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia Women and again took the race lead. She held it for several days but was deposed on Stage 9, finishing third overall.

Since then she has trained hard for almost two months, trying to ready herself for her big season appointment. The stage 4 time trial should help nudge things in the right direction, and so too her improved climbing form. Actually winning will require everything falling into place, but her keen tactical mind will help her seize any opportunities.

Another to watch include Kim Le Court, who won stage 5 last year and led the race for three days. She cracked in the high mountains but has worked hard and is vying to be more consistent this time around.

Also promising are the UAE Team l’Imad duo of Elisa Longo Borghini and Paula Blasi. Longo Borghini is a two time Giro d’Italia Women winner but hasn’t had the best of luck in the Tour de France Femmes. She was sixth in 2022 but then withdrew in 2023 and 2025 due to illness. She missed the race in 2024 through injury.

That misfortune aside, she has many of the qualities needed for success, including the kind of attacking verve which could gain her time on the early selective stages.

Blasi is far less experienced than the other two, being just 23 and in her first full season as a WorldTour pro.

However the Spaniard has stunned this year, soloing to victory in the Amstel Gold Race, overhauling Van der Breggen to win the Vuelta España Femenina, then taking the Durango Durango Emakumeen Raria, the CIC-Tour Féminin des Pyrénées and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina in momentum-building run of form.

What can she do in France? That remains to be seen. But such is her talent, anything and everything seems possible.